Lebanon - Government Approves Hariri Tribunal Despite Resignation of 6 Ministers

an-Nahar (Beirut) ^ | November 13, 2006

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The Lebanese cabinet approved on Monday a U.N. draft text setting up an international tribunal to try former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's suspected assassins.

"We unanimously approved the draft," Saniora told a news conference after the three-hour meeting.

"With this decision we tell the murderers that we will not give up our rights no matter what the difficulties and obstacles are," he said.

"Our only aim is to achieve justice and only justice. Without it and without knowing the truth, the Lebanese will not rest and we cannot protect our democratic system and political freedom now and in the future."

"Our brothers who could not join us in taking this decision were actually with us -- in our heart, our position and our decision," Saniora said, making an appeal for unity.

Saniora convened the extraordinary session Monday despite President Emile Lahoud's objections and the resignation of six ministers, five of them from Hizbullah and Amal.

Reacting to the government approval, Hizbullah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan accused the ruling majority of exercising a "hegemony and monopoly on decision-making".

He told AFP that Hizbullah objected "at the way" the ruling majority had approved the U.N. document.

Environment Minister Yaacub Sarraf, who is close to Lahoud, announced his resignation Monday, becoming the sixth government member to quit.

Saniora rejected the resignations of the ministers and invited them in a letter to return to their "effective participation" in the cabinet.

Lahoud has stepped up the pressure by saying the cabinet was no longer legitimate. The president's position, however, does not carry legal weight because he is not empowered to dissolve the government.

All 18 remaining ministers attending the meeting approved the United Nations document, and they defended the cabinet's decision as legal.

"It is 100 percent constitutional," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi quoted Saniora as saying.

With Sarraf's resignation, a quarter of the 24-member cabinet had quit. But legally it still has the necessary two-thirds quorum to meet and make decisions.

The direct challenge from the anti-Syrian March 14 Forces that dominate the cabinet and the parliament to convene the government Monday could deepen the political divide.

The parliamentary majority has accused Hizbullah and the Amal movement, the main pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian Shiite groups, of doing Damascus's and Tehran's bidding and seeking to undermine the formation of the international tribunal.

Parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri directly accused Syria and Iran of seeking to scuttle the formation of the international court.

"This is a Syrian-Iranian plan to overthrow the legitimate authority and prevent the formation of the international tribunal," said Saad at the end of a meeting of the March 14 Forces Sunday.

Iran on Monday rejected Saad Hariri's accusations that Tehran was trying to block international efforts to try those behind his father's murder.

"Iran has not meddled and will not interfere in other countries' issues. These (accusations) are not true," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

There was no immediate reaction from Syria but it has denied previous claims that it was trying to topple the Lebanese government.

The resignation of Hizbullah and Amal ministers came Saturday just after the country's top leaders failed to reach agreement on the formation of a national unity government in which Hizbullah and its affiliates would have a third-plus-one veto power, a demand vehemently rejected by the ruling majority.

Lahoud's opposition to the cabinet meeting solidifies the political divide in Lebanon between anti- and pro-Syrian forces, with Lahoud and Hizbullah tilting toward Syria and Saniora and his allies opposing their powerful neighbor's influence over their country.

Hizbullah, which gained increasing political clout for its fierce fight against Israel over the summer, recently threatened to call mass protests to begin Monday with the aim of bringing down the government unless it received greater cabinet representation.

But its senior political officer in south Lebanon Sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine told The Associated Press Sunday: "Before going to the street, there are other steps to be taken as a means to pressure the government to meet our demand to form a national unity government made up of all factions,". He did not elaborate.

[elhombrelibre]

Syria and Iran are behind this, and they are the people Blair and Baker believe will help us in Iraq. That's a non sequitur when you consider they're a big cause of terrorism in the world, especially in Lebanon and Iraq.